UEFA EURO 2020: An exciting match between football and probability

Abstract

Football, as one of the most popular sports, can provide exciting examples to motivate students learning statistics. In this paper, we analyzed the number of goals scored in the UEFA EURO 2020 final phase as well as the waiting times between goals, considering censored times. Such a dataset allows us to consider some aspects of count data taught at an introductory level (such as the Poisson distribution), as well as more advanced topics (such as survival analysis taking into account the presence of censored times). Employing data from the final phase of UEFA EURO 2020, depending on the course level, the student will acquire knowledge and understanding of a range of key topics and analytical techniques in statistics, develop knowledge of the theoretical assumption underlying them and learn the skills needed to model count data.